Image file formats are standardized means of organizing and storing digital images. Image files are composed of digital data in one of these formats that can be rasterized for use on a computer display or printer. An image file format may store data in uncompressed, compressed, or vector formats. Including certain proprietary types, there are hundreds of image file types. Some image file formats typically used to display images on the Internet are Graphics Interchange Format (GIF), Portable Network Graphics (PNG), and JPEG File Interchange Format (JFIF). Joint Photographic Experts Group (JPEG) is a popular method for compressing images circulated on the Internet, and JPEG-compressed images are usually stored in the JFIF file format or Exchangeable image file format (EXIF).
While various different types of image formats are currently employed for storing and transmitting images by digital cameras and other portable electronic devices with image capturing capabilities, conventional image file formats are typically limited in the type of information that can be stored and transmitted along with the image data. In part, this limitation exists in the various standards, e.g., JFIF, EXIF, etc. in order to minimize the storage space required to store and bandwidth required to transmit the images. However, with storage becoming increasingly cheaper and broadband speeds increasing, the inability to transmit different types of associated information along with the images poses a needless and constricting limitation on the user.